Ambrosia
Safehouse The safehouse is a bit cramped, as it is jam-packed with equipment for distilling energon from any fuel source imaginable, though coal is particularly not recommended. Bubbling chemistry sets made of glass blown in fantastic shapes twist above lab tables. The light is harsh, flickering, and artificial, as there are not windows. The air smells a bit funny, and the floor is ominously sticky. Contents: Fleet Reaver Shuttle Mindwipe Fleet is in one of the safehouses, because he's all about not being found by the enemy. In fact, that's why he's dragged the Invictus in here (Primus only knows how). Naturally, the holographic flames are turned off, but some might find the bodies all over the place a bit disconcerting. At this moment, the Seeker is checking on the shuttle, making sure it's properly hidden, but he intends to check in on the... product shortly. Hunched over one of the chemistry sets is Mindwipe, who is murmuring something to himself as he leans over the flasks and beakers. The colour of the contents seems to be rather... off. It's still pink, but in a way, it's almost... colourless. Not grey, not black, not white. It's as if the optics refuse to process what they're seeing entirely. Is it puce? Fleet finishes checking on the Invictus and walks over to join Mindwipe. He crouches down and for a moment just watches the batformer before finally speaking. "Anything I can do to help?" the Seeker asks. No. It is not puce. Sadly. Mindwipe stirs and raises an optical ridge, trying to figure out how Fleet managed to fit a whole shuttle inside of a little safehouse. He concludes that it probably has to do with 11 dimensional space folding. "Help? Oh, quite, quite possibly. Do you have any gypsy tears on you, by any chance?" Fleet's optics flicker in surprise and confusion. "I, erm... not really, although I suppose I could check the black market, if you need it that badly." He leans forward, reaching towards one of the flasks that looks complete, although his move is intentionally slow - Mindwipe has time to say, 'don't touch that.' Mindwipe doesn't tell Fleet to not touch that flask, which contains a sort of energon that not only does not glow but actually seems to suck the light out of anything near it. It seems even duller and more colourless than the unfinished batches, which still need distilling. Mindwipe waves a hand dismissively. "Never you mind. They don't sell real gypsy tears there, anyway." "You... checked?" Fleet asks uncertainly. He picks up the flask and sniffs at it experimentally. "What's the difference between Gypsy tears and any other kind of organics' tears?" The energon definitely has a scent of some sort, but it's hard to place. The first whiff seems memorable, cool and dark, like water running underground, but then it fades, as if the very smell is dribbling out of memory and off to nothingness. Mindwipe answers, "Their lifestyle and beliefs impart peculiar abilities to their tears." He tweaks one of the check valves, fretting over the distillery. Fleet reaches to dip the tip of his right pinky into the odd energon. "And how can you tell? Psychic emmenations from the tears, or whatnot?" He pulls his pinky out and examines the liquid on the tip. Mindwipe sounds bored with how mundane Fleet is being, "Alchemy books. They write quite a bit about the topic." The energon is cool and viscous, with an almost numbing quality. He carefully adds a pinch of incense to a Bunsen burner's flame. Fleet is a rather mundane Seeker, for someone who's died twice, rebuilt with Underverse technology, and rides around in a space ship covered in dead bodies. "Well... is there some non-tear oriented way I can help?" he asks, wiping the liquid off before he sets down the stuff. He's not yet thirsty enough to drink that stuff down. Mindwipe looks over at Fleet thoughtfully, before handing Fleet a globe crackling with lightning inside. "Here, hold this and think about the most delicious thing you have ever drank." Then, he turns around again to fuss over a length of tubing, wrapping duct tape around a leak. Fleet's optics again flicker in that startled blink, and he automatically accepts the globe before he realizes that it might be dangerous. Then he instinctively tries to drop it, then he realizes he shouldn't and catches it again. Finally, he holds onto the globe, shrugs, narrows his optics, and focuses. The most delicious thing he ever drank was... well, energon, because it's all energon (except for the stuff he's cut out of the natives of Alkor Zephyr). The drink gave a white light and crackled, but it went down smooth... amazingly smooth... and once it was done, he felt energized. He /was/ overenergized, but he didn't feel that way - instead, he felt as if he could take on the world, something /Fleet/ rarely feels. The lightning crackles and flickers inside the globe, changing as Fleet thinks. It seems to follow his thoughts, in a way, as if recording them, or trying to become them. Fleet can probably see his reflection in the glass of the globe, but is it smiling back at him? Finally satisfied with the state of the tubing, Mindwipe moves on to set up a second distillery set. When Fleet spots the smile, he again juggles the globe in surprise, then looks a bit sheepish and once more holds onto the thing firmly. "So how long do I have to stand here and hold your ball?" Mindwipe asks, apropos of nothing, "What is your reflection doing now, Fleet?" He sets up the various glass vessels on their stands and puts the burners into place, connecting the second set of tubing. Mindwipe pulls out a large cube of what appears to be normal energon and pours it into the first vessel of the system. "Erm... he's smiling," Fleet answers, treating his reflection as a seperate person for the moment. It's smiling and he isn't, so it makes sense to him. The Seeker glances up at Mindwipe. "Is that normal?" Mindwipe replies, "Then it is ready." He holds out a hand to accept the glass globe back. "It picks up on your thought patterns, and it mirrors them, but eventually, it captures enough of them to diverge paths. /It/ is experiencing bliss, a necessary component for ambrosia. Or, rather, the end goal of producing ambrosia. It's all rather circular." Fleet hands the globe back to Mindwipe. "I thought we were making energon?" he asks, once more being painfully mundane. Mindwipe's style is totally being cramped, here! If Fleet want to help him out, he could fake a hunch or at least lisp a bit. Has Fleet never worked for a mystic before? "We are! But ambrosia is the energon of the gods. Or a close facsimile thereof. Everything you need and absolutely nothing you don't. A machine maintained purely on ambrosia would never malfunction." He slots the globe into the filtration system of the second distillery apparatus. Fleet narrows his optics and peers at Mindwipe suspiciously. "And you can make it here, in this cramped, sticky safehouse with second grade materials? Sounds a bit too good to be true, if you ask me." Fleet is often used as a test subject by mad scientists, but he's never really worked for a mystic, no. Mindwipe snorts. "These materials are not necessarily second grade. In fact, some of the distillery equipment is here, hrm, rather better than what I had on the Hellbender." Of course, all of that is, oh, about ten millions years out of date, maybe more? "But I never said how /much/ it will make. A few mouthfuls, at the most. Ambrosia is best as an additive, a mixer, if only by necessity." "Ah," Fleet answers, crouching down and peering at the whole affair. "So we've got a larger amount of normal stuff somewhere about, huh?" The Seeker then backs away and starts to pace. "Know when we're going to make another run? Now seems the time to do it, while so many Autobot shuttles are down for the count." Mindwipe shrugs and dismisses, "I cannot say when the run will be made. I have not thrown the sticks for it. Mine is not to smuggle, only to produce. We do, however, have various stockpiles scattered around this fool's gold world." Unlike the previous colourless energon, the energon he is now distilling almost seem to have a warm hue, like copper mixed with gold painted over the petals of a lush pink rose. However, it seems very, very thick and only dribbles through the lines in tiny drops. Fleet is quite distracted by the energon being distilled. That is some... fine looking energon, he thinks. Finally, he shakes his head and announces, "I suppose I ought to organize a run, then." He peers at his ship. "The Invictus is, unfortunately, prone to stand out... but on the up side, I generally don't have to worry about civilian traffic getting in my way." He sighs. "Only Autobots." Mindwipe insists, "More ships should look like the Invictus. The world would be a better place." Mindwipe has a funny definition of 'better', since it includes 'ships covered with dead people'. "Organise your run if you wish. Your memories have served my purpose." Fleet chuckles lightly, then shrugs. He heads towards the exit and prepares to step out and search for some of the others... what a strange world, that the Decepticons can walk so openly!